After a month of fighting in Gaza and the onset of another surreal ceasefire, debkafile’s sources clue in those readers who are understandably a bit baffled about the war and where Israel stands: Although a five-day ceasefire was announced in Cairo Wednesday night, neither Israel nor Hamas had by Friday, Aug. 15, officially acknowledged a truce is in place. Obama and Netanyahu continue to lock horns as Jerusalem runs the war without Washington’s input. As for the conflict's end, every effort at diplomacy with the Hamas terrorists has so far fallen flat.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Saudi Arabia are pushing Netanyahu to go for the full-scale ground incursion against Hamas in Gaza that he doesn’t want, while the Israeli prime minister continues to keep the US out of his decisions.

The Kurdish Peshmerga fight against Islamic State terrorists broadened out Monday, Aug. 11, with the US arms airlift to the semiautonomous Iraqi Kurdish capital, Irbil, of large quantities of military hardware from the Mafraq King Hussein Air Base in Jordan and US emergency stores in the Israeli Negev. The US will soon run out of air strike targets without fielding special forces on the ground to mark them. debkafile reveals: Al Qaeda in Sinai reinforced by IS fired rockets at US and Israeli Negev bases in support of Hamas’ war on Israel.

Hamas’ military wing claimed Saturday, Aug. 2, to have lost contact with the abductors of 2nd lt. Hadar Goldin and believes they were all killed in the subsequent Israeli bombardment of Rafah. All Friday night until early Saturday, Israeli jets, tanks and heavy artillery continued to pound parts of the town. The Palestinians say they lost 150 dead – 70 in Rafah. Regarding the Cairo talks, Israel notes that Hamas has proved six times that any ceasefire deal it signs will breached and the lull used for surprise attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.

Another seven IDF officers and men died in combat with Hamas Monday, July 21 on the fourth day of Israel’s ground operation in the Gaza Strip, raising the total of Israeli fallen in this operation to 25. Four men were killed guarding the Israeli side of the Gaza border by terrorists who jumped out of a tunnel 200 meters from Kibbutz Nir Am, disguised in IDF uniforms and flak vests. Ten were killed in a counter-attack aided by helicopters, averting a major terrorist attack or kidnap: A truce remains elusive as Hamas stands by unacceptable terms.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu posted notes Friday, June 20, to President Barack Obama, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, debkafile reveals exclusively. He dealt with the rapid advances made by Sunni Islamist fighters westward towards the Iraqi-Syrian-Jordanian border. Discussing its bearing on the security of Israel, the Palestinians and Kingdom of Jordan just next door, Netanyahu stressed that the only force in the region able to guard against ISIS was the IDF and its Jordan River deployment.

President Obama announced Thursday, June 19, after meeting his national security team, that the US would send up to 300 military advisers to Baghdad and establish joint operations centers in Baghdad and the North. He said that the US would be willing to join inclusive regimes in Syria and Iraq in setting up counterterrorism platforms for regional partners to fight terrorists. debkafile: The level of US military assistance offered by Obama will not deter the ISIS and its Sunni allies from further advances in Iraq.

Ahmed Abu Khattala, commander of the Libyan Ansar al-Sharia, who led the 2012 assault on the US consulate in Benghazi, has been captured in a secret US Special Operations forces raid in the same Libyan town. The Islamist terrorist, who was the prime mover in the attack which killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff, is now in US custody outside Libya. DEBKA Weekly 635 revealed exclusively on May 16 that US President Barack Obama had signed a secret Presidential Directive for the capture of Abu Khattala, dead or alive.